Those of you who know me well may know that I experienced a devastating personal loss some time ago. My dearest camera, my in-the-dark photo taking magic device, my Canon Rebel XT, took its first steaps on the long, long trek to electronics heaven, where the batteries always put out 7.0 volts, and the adaptive exposure control always works.
It got wet out at the creek, although I didn’t know it at the time, and when I used it briefly a week or so later, something in its cute little head went pop, and it hasn’t spoken a work or a click to me since.
The Rebel XT is a pretty damned magical camera, where 800 and even 1600 ISO shots can make damned fine 3×5s, maybe even 4×6s. It had rocking image stabilization built into the lens, giving you an extra two f-stops of exposure. You could, and I mean this literally, just hand-hold the camera and take shots at night. It would go from completely turned off to ready to shoot in 0.1 seconds, and took on average less than a quarter second to focus on just about anything. It was, without a doubt, the finest camera I’ve ever owned.
I’ll get it repaired or replaced eventually, but I’ve wanted for a while to get a camera with what’s technically known as a big fucking zoom. I also wanted a video camera, so that I can spread the Gospel of Kelly via Youtube. I gots some shit needs sayin’, yo.
My Rebel XT could take a lens that would provide the zoom, and at higher
quality than just about anything else out there, but it would then be
a) a $2100 chunk of metal, b) more than a foot long, and c) weigh about
8lbs. None of this is good, and it still wouldn’t record video. And, while I don’t regret taking my camera out in the field, I thought it would be nice to maybe have a less expensive camera to take, say, tubing with me.
So, I present to you, ladies and gentlemen, my first new toy:
It’s a Canon Powershot S5 IS. It cost my $350 for an 8 megapixel image with a 12x zoom. The wide end is a wee bit narrower than my old lens, but the long end is 35mm-equivalent 432mm, which is photog-speak for really damned long. It’s no Rebel XT–the images are noisier, it definitely does not take pictures in the dark, and the auto-focus is, literally, glacially slower. Since you’re not looking through a mirror at the actual scene you’re shooting, it’s often impossible to tell if an image is actually in focus. On the plus side, it does shoot some nice video, which I will post samples of as soon as I can, and the images it takes are actually pretty solid. I’ve posted some photos over on Flickr that I took Saturday on a trip to Inks Lake State Park.
So, there is that. It’s a good camera and I look forward to having a lot of fun with it. I also took a few pictures on the UT campus, which can be seen in my photo stream.
I’ll bet, though, I’ll just bet, that when you saw that picture of the S5 above, your first thought was, “but Kelly, if your Rebel is broken, and your S5 is in the picture, what could you have possibly taken that picture with.” It was, wasn’t it? I was right, wasn’t I? I know I was. I am. I’m always right. It’s the great thing about being me.
Anyway, I took that slightly-fuzzy picture with my other new toy, my iPhone 3G.
Ta-da!
I’ll leave further discussion about the iPhone until I’ve had more of a chance to play with it, but my first impression is this: it’s approximately as cool as pastrami * sex. Literally, I’m so fascinated by it that if a generic woman were to say to me, “Kelly, howabout we has us some sex right now, crazy jungle sex with blowjobs in?”, I’d be like, “Naw, I’m kinda playin’ with my iPhone. Maybe later.”
There are exceptions to this rule. Call today to find out if you’re one of them.
